I long for Carson and his calm ways as Florine lets out a huge sob and falls backward onto the carpeted floor. Well, most of her falls backwards. Luther manages to keep hold of an arm and Dwaine grabs a shoulder, and I’ll be darned if it doesn’t look like they’re getting ready to dress her out like a six-point buck. The thought of anyone field-dressing Eugene’s mom makes me want to giggle. I try to cover it up by faking a coughing spell. Apparently, my attempt is successful because I suddenly find Louise pounding on my back and shouting, “Cough it up! You’re not dying on my watch.”
The pummeling is interrupted by the Rev. Hayslinger’s loud command of “Let us pray,” at which everyone drops their heads and folds their hands. All but Dwaine and Luther, that is. They just bow their heads and keep their hold on Florine, who is going to have one dilly of a headache if she keeps hanging that way.
“Told you she was bat-shit crazy.” Eugene’s voice after the “amen” is low and despondent.
“She’s just high-strung.” I try to console him, and my grandma’s phrase is the first to pop into my mind. I’m not sure what “high-strung” means, but it seems as good a way as any to describe Florine at the moment.
“I’m calling the ambulance.” The pronouncement from the chief is immediately rebuffed by the woman of the moment.
“Do that and I’ll sue you.” The threat would have been a little more, well, threatening if Florine’s face wasn’t muffled by the carpet. “And I’ll tell the city council you manhandled me like a sack of potatoes, right here in the good Lord’s own house.”
Luther lets go first. Dwaine kinda eases Florine up on her feet and leads her to a pew. I expect Eugene to rush over and comfort his mama, but he makes the universal sign of crazy—his index finger making loops at his temple. Louise dashes over and pulls her friend against her bodice, cooing to her like she might a lost puppy.
With the noise abated, Luther makes a dramatic announcement. “Someone,” he says in an excited yet stern voice, “has stolen Miz Waddy!”
The babble begins again, a chorus of “What did you say?” and “Miz Waddy at the dry goods store?”
“Enough!” The chief uses his big boy voice for the second time in ten minutes. His hand rests on the butt of his gun, and I can tell by the way he shifts from one foot to the other he is dying to use it. He motions Luther over to the side. I sidle over as the two men huddle by the pulpit. I am a news hound by profession, and I have a right to know details. Or so I tell myself as I plain-old eavesdrop.
Those whispered details are chilling. Miz Waddy’s car is parked where it always is, by the no-parking sign above the hydrant in front of her shop. The door is closed, but unlocked, and Miss Priss, her old and grumpy cat, nearly shredded the hem of Luther’s standard issue police pants when he walked in to investigate. Everyone in Fortuna knows how Miz Waddy dotes on that cat. She’d never leave her behind.
Over by the organ, the fine-voiced ladies of Fortuna huddle together, greatly resembling a herd of cows in fall-hued polyester. With its high pitch, Penelope’s voice tends to carry, and I catch a few words as I sidle back away from the chief.
“We women better lock our doors and stock up on pepper spray,” she orders, “before the devil plunks himself down in the mayor’s chair.”
I’m not quite sure what she is trying to say, but that’s not unusual. Penelope has a large vocabulary and tons of the local vernacular, yet she does tend to lump odd images together. Like her favorite “It’s better to fry like a frog than sink in a lily pond.” Personally, I think if I were a frog, I’d rather drown in pond water than hot butter with a nice flavoring of seasoned pepper and paprika.
Being a news reporter, I decide it’s important to check out the scene for myself. I am, of course, torn about leaving the church. Calm appears to prevail, but it could just be the eye of the storm. Another furor might wash across the place at any moment.
I know that any choir member will be happy to fill me in on any improper proceedings, and it’s not going to be long before Luther admits he didn’t lock up Miz Waddy’s shop because he’s frequently forgetful. That will send Dwaine, hopping mad, over to the dry goods store. While Dwaine and I have a good relationship, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to invite me in for a look-see.
I realize as I sneak toward the side door that Eugene is sneaking with me. Well, sneaking as best an overweight adolescent in baggy trousers and chained wallet can. I hold the door for him; he shuts it quietly behind us. I nod when he asks if he can ride along with me.
He doesn’t want to inspect the rows of calico and zippers to see if any are missing. I know that. What he wants, I’m pretty sure, is to get my opinion of his mother’s mental stability. Or, given those moments at the church, her instability.
“Do the kids of crazy people have to go to foster care?” he asks, attempting a casual tone.
I maintain the same “doesn’t matter” attitude as I answer. “Only if they’re otherwise without family,” I assure him. “You have your grandmother.”
He gives me one of those withering stares that teenagers seem to gain with puberty. “You know she’s bat-shit crazy, too, right?”
I wouldn’t describe Annalee Forrester, his late father’s mother, quite that way. She is unique. Some might say in a good way; others might disagree. Annalee is from the old school in which kids learned about life from their parents. Unfortunately, Annalee’s mother was a space cadet, or so I’ve been told, who loved her child deeply, but understood the practice of rearing a child only in the abstract. The care and nurturing of little Annalee fell to her father, who is still known for his various talents twenty years after his death.
He was a lumberjack, a stonemason, a purveyor of moonshine, and an itinerant preacher, although not all at the same time. Tagging at his heels, Annalee learned to cut lumber, lay bricks, swear like a sailor, and pray like a nun. When she took a husband at the tender age of forty-one, no one expected her to reproduce. Yet, she popped out a son whom they named Ambrose after a dog Annalee once had and that son wound up married to Florine.
Although Annalee’s husband is in the great beyond, she still lives in the small cottage she laid the foundation for the week before her wedding. The ceilings are low and the windows are few, but it’s a sturdy place she reigns over as if it were Buckingham Palace.
“Your grandmother just likes things a certain way,” I say, defending the woman who once called the radio station to ask why we never played Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby in our top twenty countdown.
“She’s nuts.” Eugene sounded morose again. “I know she’s not the only person to ask her visitors to take off their shoes at the door, but I’ve never heard of anyone else providing a bowl of water and homemade soap to scrub their feet before they come in.”
Okay, maybe Annalee goes a little overboard on the cleanliness thing. And cementing her entire front yard to keep cats from digging is a little strange, too.
“Your mother is going to be fine,” I say with all the conviction I can fake. “She’s stressed out from the festival and the choir program, that’s all.”
Fortuna being not the largest of towns, we are at Miz Waddy’s shop before I finish those last words. I park down the street, hoping that if Dwaine happens to cruise by he won’t know where I am. I take a small LED flashlight from my glove compartment and turn to Eugene.
“Stay in this car,” I warn him. “Or I’ll call the chief and you will end up in foster care as an incorrigible youth.”
“I’m going in with you.” Eugene opens his door and steps out. The car goes up about three inches.
“Because,” he continues as I also get out of the car, “if the dudes who stole Miss Peytona are still around, I’ll be here to defend you.”
I have news for Eugene. If there’s any living creature in that place besides Miss Priss, I’ll set a new record for the fastest runner in Fortuna. Still, I can see how he believes he’s needed, and I do hate to crush his spirit, especially with his mother in her current condition.
We stroll down the sidewalk as if out for an evening constitutional. When we near the dry goods store, I angle over, try the doorknob and walk right in when it gives. Flicking on my flashlight, I aim it toward the floor so it can’t be seen by anyone passing by.
The Peytonas have had a store of some kind in the same location since Fortuna first came into being in the late nineteenth century, or so the official tour brochure for the town claims. The local woman’s club also serves as the welcoming committee, and the two most agile of its gray-haired members took me on a walking tour my first day on the job.
According to the one who achieved the decibel level of a lawn mower because she’s deaf, Waddell Peytona had a general store and dentist office here for twenty years. After he went to join the angels, Waddell Peytona the second kept the store and declined to yank teeth, adding a post office instead. Future Waddell Peytonas changed the inventory, but kept the name, which is why Wadelline Peytona’s dry goods store has a weathered wooden tooth hanging over the front door and a painted advertisement for chewing tobacco fading on the side of the building.
Beside me, Eugene gives a gasp and jumps as my flashlight flickers across something gray and moving fast. I grab his arm and whisper what I hope is a reassuring, “It’s just her cat.” Now I don’t know that it’s Miss Priss, mind you, but I’m pretty sure our covert operation is blown if I tell Eugene it’s one of those big river rats that sometimes come up through an uncovered drain. That’s one of the drawbacks of living along the flowing Ohio, I learned on moving to Fortuna, but folks here think the river view is pretty enough to make up for foot-long rodents.
The blade of light we’re following falls on a little of this and a little of that blocking the ends of the aisles. Moving into one of the aforesaid aisles, I discover nothing but bolts and bolts of fabric. Most of the rows are the same, except for the one that holds skeins and skeins of yarn. If this place is still as well-stocked when the apocalypse comes, I want to be stranded here. Surely Miz Waddy has her upstairs apartment fully stocked with canned goods and jars of peanut butter; she seems the practical sort. And with all this fabric, I could have a new outfit everyday while the other survivors wander around in rags.
Note to self: Learn to sew before the apocalypse.
“This place is spooky.” Eugene’s voice is higher pitched than I’ve heard it before and now it’s him gripping my arm. “Think maybe somebody hacked her up and stuffed her down the well out back?”
I bring my light up so I can see his pasty face. He really does look scared.
“The well out back is a fake,” I explain. “Back before you were born—heck, before I was born—people built those wooden wishing wells as a lawn decoration. There’s not enough room in that bucket to stuff Miss Priss, let alone Miz Waddy.”
Most wishing wells are long gone from the not-so-luxurious lawns of Fortuna, replaced by families of lawn gnomes or those fire pots. Miz Waddy keeps hers in perfect condition, probably because one of the Peytonas who came before her built it. I swear I saw her varnishing the little wooden staves with a toothbrush last summer.
Eugene’s being spooked makes me see weird things in the shadows my flashlight doesn’t reach. We retrace our steps, taking care not to disturb anything. We’re two steps from my car when I see one of Fortuna’s finest pulling up in a cruiser. Luther, I’m pretty sure. I suspect that after dealing with the church ladies, Dwaine is headed for the Tip ‘Em Inn for a couple of drinks.
I know we’re spotted because the blue lights start twirling. That confirms my belief it’s Luther. He loves that light bar.
He strides toward us, hands on his utility belt like our faces grace the most-wanted posters down at the post office. I keep hoping Luther will find a nice girl and settle down. I can see him dropping the kiddies off at Grandma’s before he and Mrs. Luther go to bingo night at the VFW hall and then stop by the Tip ‘Em to round off date night.
“Not surprised to see you here.” He tries for a gruff, you’re-in-trouble tone, but it comes out a lot like his gimme-a-cheeseburger tone.
“I was worried about Miss Priss,” I lie. “You know how I love animals.”
“Uh-huh.” Luther was around during the months after I inherited Precious, the ugliest dog God ever graced the earth with. He doesn’t know that the ghost of one of my ex-boyfriends was attached, or that in her way, Precious really was…precious. “Then you won’t mind taking her in until we find Miz Waddy. Chief wants to send her to the pound.”
Dang. One tiny fib and here I am, trapped into kitty sitting.
“I’ll take care of her,” Eugene cuts in.
“Uhhh.” Not a brilliant response from Luther, but I understand. He was probably trying to figure out if Eugene meant shelter and feed or was using the phrase “take care of her” in the vernacular of a hit man. Or maybe he figured Eugene would make poor Miss Priss a midnight sacrifice.
“I love cats.” Eugene’s voice is earnest. “If my mother wasn’t allergic, I’d have a dozen of them.”
As Eugene waxes on about how regal cats are and what great companions they make, I can almost hear Luther’s mind at work. Like maybe he’s beginning to realize that just because Eugene is different, it doesn’t mean he is evil. Or even bad enough to step on a crack and break his mother’s back.
“Uh, your mother’s allergy?” I finally cut in.
“Oh.” Eugene’s face falls. Then it brightens and he says, “Maybe we could both stay at your house.”
Panic rises swiftly and fills every fiber of my being. I could maybe handle Eugene or the cat, but not both of them. Okay, if I’m being honest here, I don’t think I could handle a teenager even on a temporary basis. Or afford to feed a healthy growing boy like good old Big E. I doubt if he’d settle for a bowl of kitty kibbles twice a day.
“I’ll take the cat; you go home and keep an eye on your mother.” I put as much authority as I can muster into what I hope sounds like an order.
“Breaker, breaker here,” Luther interrupts, leading me to wonder what old TV show he’d been watching. “The alto section decided it would be best if Florine had a nice little rest away from the stress she’s been under lately. At the moment she’s secured in a room at the motel out on the Interstate.”